i know pokerstars does obviously, but where else should i be playing DONs. a list of a few aand positives and negatives of the site would be so helpful!

pkrstuff you including 18+ mans in that graph? HEM can't calc that shizz correctly. If that's not the case then I have a hard time believing that graph!

no money in DoNs, everyone's colluding. seriously, i dont think theres any other place to play DoNs besides stars. why would you want to play anywhere else anyway?

mypkrstuff - thats sick..steaks and games?

Hey guys can someone tell me if there is a program that would move tables to the stacks according to what level the blinds are?

I just started playing STT's 10-20 tabling, and I was a winner in NL25 a year ago over 30k hands and winner in HU avg buyin 10$ on the euro sites...
I just started playing again poker and decided that stts on stars will be a good place to grind, but seems like it isn't.....
I cant beat the 1.75$ turbos, although I watched about 10 videos on deucescracked before startin on STT's....
Is it safe to say that I am a loser at these now or just LOL SAMPLE SIZE..
Greatly appreciate any input.

That's a good idea, I think I'll give it a try and see what I can learn.

It's possible you're just running bad. I would try dropping the number of tables you're playing.

Hey guys,

I know you get these questions all the time, but...

I am playing $2.15 6 max super turbo SNG's on Full Tilt. I have played a decent sample size of around 250 (thats a guess) and I am up almost $50.

Here are a couple of questions:

- What type of ROI could I expect at these if I was playing very well, given the rake and nature of the game? 10%? 8%?
- 15 buyin swings are super standard right?

Your roi would be around 5-8% if you are playing very well. Variance is very bad in super turbos. Expect 50+ bi downswings.

Wow. I knew the variance would be high and downswings would be big.... but I didnt think they would be that big lol. 50 buyins is huge.

Standard - get used to it

Hey guys, I always have a hard time putting opponents on a certain range. I use pokerstove, but feel like either my range is too specific or too broad. Is there any other doftware I can use to help me out, like sit and go wizard?

No software will be telling you what range your opponent have. Its up to you. Just use a hud, get reads and take notes, then by time youll be more confident in the ranges you assign to your opponents.

I use software called Tournament Indicator and it tells me their PFR and 3-bet%. I use those stats when making my range, with a few corrections. Is this a good method to go on?

Yeah that what most do. Also use VPIP and some Stealstats. Whatever suits you and makes it easier to decide. Its all about what fits you.

Here's an example for this sense of variance: you have 66 and call a loose raiser. The flop comes K53r and he bets. If you fold, you are making a low-variance play. You will just lose your equity in the pot each time (which is quite small). If you raise, you are making a high-variance play because you are increasing risk and reward.

Here's another: you raise AK and a random 3bets. If you call or fold, you are making a low-variance play. If you fold, you lose your raise every time. If you call and play fit or fold, you tend to lose some equity. If you shove, you are again increasing risk and reward.

And another: you have 63 in the small blind and 10BBs. You think BB is going to call a fairly tight range. If you fold, you are making a low-variance play. You will just surrender your equity. If you shove, you are increasing risk and reward, and again your variance in this sense will increase. I'll give you figures for this in cEV. Let's say blinds are 50/100. Folding costs you about 60 chips against a random hand. Shove and you gain 90 chips over your equity if he folds, and if he calls you expect either 0 or 2000 (your cEV when called is a bit less than 500 chips against a random hand and worse against a tight calling range).

This is not quite "very standard" but not unusual.

Here's the common wisdom on variance in SNGs. the variance in a 9-man is 160. To caclulate a standard deviation, we do 160/SQRT(N) where N is the sample size. Juk or York and others claim that the redline removes some aspects of variance and increase our sample size by roughly 3.7times.

In your case, the sample size is ~100, so for the red line your standard deviation is going to be 8.33% which means that 68.2% of the time, your results will vary from your true ROI by 8.33% or less. The other 31.8% of the time you vary by more than that in one direction or the other, which means that 15.9% of the time, you will be doing worse than 8.33% (in terms of ROI) from your true results.

The point here is that it doesn't mean you're a losing player, but it doesn't help. I would suggest dropping tables as well. It seems like you're playing smaller BI games and most of the money to be made is when you move up. Dropping tables tends to accelerate your development as a poker player because it allows you to think about decisions and learn things as you go along.

So i wasn't enjoying cash games and rush as much as I was hoping so i started to play STT sng's. so far I have won a hand full and have been playing pretty well taking advantage of the micro noobs (although I am one myself)

what can i use to help me play better as well as win and move up!!! all i have right now is a starting hand chart...and im on a MAC

I would suggest signing up to a video training site. SitnGoGrinders is a nice one.

Thanks Ezplus, I just downloaded the trial of PT3 as well, still not exactly sure on how to use it to my advantage :/

and, are the videos really worth the money?

Yes it's worth the money. I havn't watched any of the videos but GrinderSchool has subscriptions starting at $10/month.

Hi, I was wondering If some DON players could give me some insight;

There's a promotion specifically for DON's on Titan this month. In a nutshell, the players with the most volume get cash bonuses. Full details can be found here, if you're interested;

http://www.titanpoker.com/promotions...p-october.html

The rake on almost all Titan DON's is 10%. There is no rakeback, but the VIP system accounts for about 13-15% rakeback. There is also a $600 bonus with a similar rakeback %. So in total about 30% rakeback, at least until the bonus ends.

The structure is similar to Stars', but a bit faster in the beginning and the levels are only 4 minutes (full structure is in the screenshot below). The software is also a bit slower so less hands get in per level. The players are quite bad, even the people I'd call regulars make some fairly basic mistakes.

The first week of this promotion is nearly over. The leaderboards are posted online publicly. I went through the $10-$30 leaderboard and sharkscoped the last week of the top thirty players. Surprisingly, only one player was positive in this week, with most being down several thousand.

Here is a screenshot showing the sharkscope results, the actual leaderboard, the prizes for placing on the leaderboard, and the structure of their DON's.



Getting to my question, is there any way this DON format is really this unbeatable? Is it possible that most of this leaderboard is just really bad? Thanks in advance for any input.

you can get more than 30% back on some skins (bonus forum) plus some players get under the counter extras. Just looking at platina with my free searches I see hes played
about 1900 $30s at -3.5% ,
so if he continues and gets leaderboard prizes he'll make a profit. I think a lot of players at the higher levels are just going for sheer volume.

I play $16 sngs on Pokerstars and I'm 70 BI down after 444 games. Is there any chance that I'm not a losing player? My ROI is -15.6% and HEM luck adjusted is -6.2%. Previously I was a small winner at lower stakes ($6.5s ROI 2.8%, luck adjusted 4.8% over 1k games; ipoker $5.5s 6.7% and 2.7% respectively over 3.5k; ipoker $11s 3.7% and 4.2% over 1k). My play hasn't changed so I think I should be at least break even player at $16s. Am I really that bad or is it just a bad run?

d2d4, no offence but you're probably that bad. You beat games on an easy site not very well and now you're playing in a tougher game on a tougher site. You probably aren't quite good enough. Drop down to the 6.5s, play fewer tables and study hard; you'll get there.